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The truth is, new jobless claims in the 375,000 range, after nearly four year recession (or quasi-recession), is abysmal. I mean at the beginning of a slump, claims this high (or higher) might be understandable, but this far into the slowdown, we are still hemmoraging jobs at an alarming rate. Under normal circumstances, the business cycle would have led to job recovery. Of course, every single Obama policy is a business (and therefore a job) killer.

The media orgasms over every drop in claims, even though the drop is usually in the revision range. I have been following this metric fairly closely, and the media used to say that economists believe that 250,000 weekly jobless claims were a sign of a healthy economy. That number has gradually been escalating to 300,000, then 350,000. Lately I have seen that anthing below 400,000 was the magic number. They count on a dumbed-down readership doesn't remember earlier stories, and just swallows whatever propaganda that is being peddled.